• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

The Day of the Doctore Review Thread (Spoilers?)

So what did you think?

  • Brilliant: Geronimo.

    Votes: 188 77.7%
  • Very Good: Bow Ties are Cool!

    Votes: 38 15.7%
  • Ok: Come along Ponds.

    Votes: 10 4.1%
  • Passable: Fish Fingers and Custard.

    Votes: 5 2.1%
  • Terrible: Who da man?

    Votes: 1 0.4%

  • Total voters
    242
  • Poll closed .
Second, if saving Gallifrey created a new timeline, then everything we've seen from "Rose" onward would have happened completely differently because of how much the Doctor's guilt shaped his character and actions (another theme of the episode). I don't even think his eventual regenerations would have taken the forms that they did if the Doctor had known from the beginning that Gallifrey was still out there.

I don't get why people keep saying this. The whole point of the last scene between the three doctors is that Hurt and 10 wouldn't remember any of this. Even with the rewritten timeline, the Doctor thinks he kerploded Gallifrey and was knocked out during the process because everything from first opening the Moment to regeneration is missing. So he'd still be shaped by his guilt and the actions he took during the Time War (the Moment and whatever else he may have done before deciding No More). It wouldn't be until he's 11 that he learns the truth, and from here out can live with the knowledge that Gallifrey may still be out there.

Everything that we've since 2005 is completely unchanged by whether this is how it always happened or the Doctors changed the past because time can be rewritten. It's really just a matter of personal interpretation and which version you like better.
 
The Wiki says it was the Doctor's use of the Moment that locked the war, but that was apparently asserted in a comic.

Interestingly enough, the Moment seems to take credit for letting them through the time lock when the Interface is talking to herself.

Thats not the point. Point is, he said he saw Gallifrey burn. He said it because he remembered it, not because he "guessed" thats what happened. He's certain beyond a doubt. No ifs or buts.

I remember things that never happened. I remember watching Star Trek episodes that don't exist, I can clearly remember flying, but I am pretty sure I didn't. There are people who clearly remember being abducted by aliens. There's the thing called false memories, which might be what Christopher is referring to. Even if that's not it, just because he saw Gallifrey burning, does not mean that Gallifrey was actually burning. He could have seen the Moment's projection, which is quite visually real.

That works even if there was never a timeline where Gallifrey was burning. To stop it from happening, the Doctor had to be convinced by his future selves who have lived through it, and the Moment had to make it as real as possible for them. What good is a sentient enigmatic weapon if it can't do that?

Something else: Has anyone mentioned that the Moment tricked the Doctor to freeze Gallifrey into a moment (with the word deliberately emphasized in the dialogue)? Fucking awesome. :guffaw: And also food for thought...
 
I think it's up to you to decide whether Gallifrey burned at one point and time has been rewritten or whether it never burned and it was a false impression. I lean heavily towards the former impression, but this is Doctor Who so everything is up for grabs!
 
I think it's up to you to decide whether Gallifrey burned at one point and time has been rewritten or whether it never burned and it was a false impression. I lean heavily towards the former impression, but this is Doctor Who so everything is up for grabs!

It did both. It did burn and it didn't. Time travel is such fun!*

*May cause headaches.
 
I guess the time lords must have lost all their tardis's prior to the last day of the time war with only the sky trenches and laser batteries holding the attack, or budget would be too insane to show a million tardis's fighting 10 million daleks ships :P
 
It did both. It did burn and it didn't. Time travel is such fun!*

*May cause headaches.

The Moment could see the past and the future to impersonate Bad Wolf, maybe it could see alternative timelines. So it would have happened in a timeline that the Moment prevented from occurring in the first place, but it also did happen, because she showed the Doctor the reality in it, which he remembered.
 
There are a couple of other things I'm still trying to figure out about the Zygon plot of the episode, though. It's possible that it just doesn't hold up to scrutiny, since the main focus was on the three Doctors, but I wonder if anyone can answer these questions.

-- When the Doctors are trying to return to present-day London to deal with the Zygons, but they can't land in the Black Archive, how exactly do they manage to come out of the painting?

What happened to the TARDIS? Did they land it somewhere first? Did they go back to Elizabeth I's time and hide in the painting for centuries? Or did they go back to the actual Time War and then emerge from the painting somehow? I'm confused.

Well, they had the crystal ball-like device in the TARDIS with them when the War Doctor suggested they could use the "Cup-a-Soup" approach, so I assume they used that device to translate themselves into the painting at some point before it was moved to the archive, so that they'd be smuggled inside when it was moved there. And they broke out the same way the Zygons did; I'd assume that anyone who entered a pre-existing stasis cube using that device would be able to exit at will when the time was right.


-- Why did the Zygons bring Clara to the Black Archive? Did they need her for some reason, or was it just classic villain "Let me tell you all about my plan before I kill you"?

Maybe they planned to capture and replace her once they had her alone in the archive.


I don't get why people keep saying this. The whole point of the last scene between the three doctors is that Hurt and 10 wouldn't remember any of this. Even with the rewritten timeline, the Doctor thinks he kerploded Gallifrey and was knocked out during the process because everything from first opening the Moment to regeneration is missing. So he'd still be shaped by his guilt and the actions he took during the Time War (the Moment and whatever else he may have done before deciding No More). It wouldn't be until he's 11 that he learns the truth, and from here out can live with the knowledge that Gallifrey may still be out there.

Yes, but that's just why we believe no change happened -- because the proposed "change" doesn't actually alter anything as far as any of the observers are aware. So in that case, why can't it be that this is the way things were all along? There doesn't need to be a change if the real outcome was just secret. It's Occam's Razor -- an explanation should include no unnecessary variables.


I remember things that never happened. I remember watching Star Trek episodes that don't exist, I can clearly remember flying, but I am pretty sure I didn't. There are people who clearly remember being abducted by aliens. There's the thing called false memories, which might be what Christopher is referring to.

All memories are a little bit false. All perceptions are a little bit false. The brain isn't a video recorder. Our perception of the world is more like a computer simulation extrapolated from sensory data, running a fraction of a second behind real-time input because of the time the brain needs to calculate it (which is why our reaction time is never quite instantaneous). A memory is another simulation, based on more fragmentary data because we don't retain everything we observe, and thus it's always an approximation, partly recalled data and partly our own minds' best guesses of how to fill in the gaps in that data. The more you review a memory, the more guesses and extrapolations you fill it in with, and the farther from reality it can get. You can have an experience where you don't see something happening but assume it must have, and you'll imagine it in your mind so often that eventually that imagining will blend in with your real memory and you'll forget that you didn't actually witness it.

I have a memory of a day when I was five years old and playing on the swings in the back yard when my mother came out to tell me that Star Trek was on, and I was confused because it was Saturday morning and the show was on in the evenings, so I went inside and discovered that Star Trek was also a cartoon. But I have no idea whether that's something I actually remembered after having forgotten it for years, or a memory I invented because it seemed plausible to me that it happened that way. It's a story I constructed for myself about the event, and I don't know how much of it is actually true. At least some of it is probably a composite of other memories taking place in that back yard.
 
I don't get why people keep saying this. The whole point of the last scene between the three doctors is that Hurt and 10 wouldn't remember any of this. Even with the rewritten timeline, the Doctor thinks he kerploded Gallifrey and was knocked out during the process because everything from first opening the Moment to regeneration is missing. So he'd still be shaped by his guilt and the actions he took during the Time War (the Moment and whatever else he may have done before deciding No More). It wouldn't be until he's 11 that he learns the truth, and from here out can live with the knowledge that Gallifrey may still be out there.

Yes, but that's just why we believe no change happened -- because the proposed "change" doesn't actually alter anything as far as any of the observers are aware. So in that case, why can't it be that this is the way things were all along? There doesn't need to be a change if the real outcome was just secret. It's Occam's Razor -- an explanation should include no unnecessary variables.

:shrug: Sure, and that's fine if you want to read it that way.

I just think it makes a more powerful story that all thr... thirteen of them decide to fix a terrible (but seemingly necessary) choice that actually happened than to just discover... "Oh wait, I was wrong all along and I never made that choice." And I think that was Moffat's intent. But it's written in such a way that your interpretation is completely valid.

(And I think it's especially lovely that it was two of the women that knew him best who actually make this redemption possible and point him in the direction to do so.)
 
On a slightly different topic... I was kinda surprised how much recycled music was in this episode. Obviously there are some terrific themes I was glad to hear again, but I still found it a bit distracting how much of the special was made up of old music.

In fact wasn't there supposed to be specially made "Day of the Doctor" theme for this? I don't remember hearing it anywhere....
 
I just think it makes a more powerful story that all thr... thirteen of them decide to fix a terrible (but seemingly necessary) choice that actually happened than to just discover... "Oh wait, I was wrong all along and I never made that choice." And I think that was Moffat's intent. But it's written in such a way that your interpretation is completely valid.

That implies that you can't change a choice that you haven't made yet. In both interpretations, the fate of Gallifrey hangs on the same choice based on the same memories. And in both interpretations, Gallifrey came just as close to being burned. Whether it happened or not doesn't undo the enormity of it, doesn't undo the memory of the horror, the guilt, or the moment of joy and relief.

Sure, discovering that you found a way to never do it in the first place colours these emotions with a different hue, and you'd feel differently once you discover it, but I don't think different automatically means inferior. To me, it's more appealing that way.

But I also do think that from the perspective of the Doctor, figuring out a way to reverse it versus figuring a way to not have done it in the first place produces nearly the same pleasant sensation, to the point there might not be any difference.
 
Straight from The Moffat's Mouth:

"It was about a year ago, I remember thinking, 'What occasion in the Doctor's life is the most important?' - well, it's the day he blew up Gallifrey.

"Then I tried to imagine what writing that scene would be like and I thought, 'There's kids on Gallifrey and he's going to push the button? He wouldn't!' I don't care what's at stake, he's not going to do it.

"So that was the story - of course he never did that, he couldn't. He's the Doctor - he's the man who doesn't do that. He's defined by the fact that he doesn't do that, whatever the cost, he will find another way.

"So it had to be the story of what really happened, that he's forgotten. Of course he didn't - he's Doctor Who! He doesn't do things like that!"
 
On a slightly different topic... I was kinda surprised how much recycled music was in this episode. Obviously there are some terrific themes I was glad to hear again, but I still found it a bit distracting how much of the special was made up of old music.

In fact wasn't there supposed to be specially made "Day of the Doctor" theme for this? I don't remember hearing it anywhere....

Thank you, i thought the same thing.
Every iconic scene in the film used the same music from earlier episodes or a slight variation of.
The most original piece of music I can recall was the new version of the show's credit theme.
If Murray Gold has written new music it blended in so well, that I didn't notice it... which doesn't usually happen with his style. ;)
 
Straight from The Moffat's Mouth:

..."So it had to be the story of what really happened, that he's forgotten. Of course he didn't - he's Doctor Who! He doesn't do things like that!"

Well, that would seem to settle it.


Meanwhile, the bit about there being children on Gallifrey would seem to pretty decisively decanonize the Cartmel Masterplan and the Virgin New Adventures, since the Gallifreyan "Looms" in the books created new Time Lords as full-grown adults.
 
Meanwhile, the bit about there being children on Gallifrey would seem to pretty decisively decanonize the Cartmel Masterplan and the Virgin New Adventures, since the Gallifreyan "Looms" in the books created new Time Lords as full-grown adults.
Surely the young Master in "The Sound of Drums" did the same?
 
Oh sure, prove me utterly wrong. :lol:

I stand by my overall point, but I'm perfectly happy to go with Moff's intentions here. :)
 
I think it's up to you to decide whether Gallifrey burned at one point and time has been rewritten or whether it never burned and it was a false impression. I lean heavily towards the former impression, but this is Doctor Who so everything is up for grabs!

It did both. It did burn and it didn't. Time travel is such fun!*

*May cause headaches.
Actually it did burn, The Daleks were starting fires all over the place. Just because we saw fires burning, though, that doesn't prove one way or the other, if it burnt to Destruction, or if The Moment was responsible for it burning
 
On a slightly different topic... I was kinda surprised how much recycled music was in this episode. Obviously there are some terrific themes I was glad to hear again, but I still found it a bit distracting how much of the special was made up of old music.

In fact wasn't there supposed to be specially made "Day of the Doctor" theme for this? I don't remember hearing it anywhere....

Thank you, i thought the same thing.
Every iconic scene in the film used the same music from earlier episodes or a slight variation of.
The most original piece of music I can recall was the new version of the show's credit theme.
If Murray Gold has written new music it blended in so well, that I didn't notice it... which doesn't usually happen with his style. ;)

The music that is playing when Hurt regenerates, is that new??? I rather like it.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top